How to have parents as your friends
From ArticleWorld
To Have Parents as your Friends may seem impossible to believe but today’s children do want their parents as friends even though they believe that the parents grew up living in the stone age as compared to them, no cell phones, no internet, no ipods, no……..phew! Even with seemingly insurmountable differences, it is possible for parents and children to become friends and have a new relationship on a long term basis. Here are a few helpful hints to set you on the way.
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A few thumb rules
- Be sincere in your efforts at friendship, do not just go to through the motions of wanting to fit this new relationship in your busy schedules.
- To start with, find a common ground, something that both you and your parents are interested in, it could be music, it could be sports or it could even be Greek mythology. Once talking comes easy a long term relationship will take care of itself.
- Set aside a certain time for your talks; it might be the dinner table (if your family keeps regular dinner hours) or it could be anytime before retiring for the night.
- Talk to them as an adult while keeping in mind that they are your parents and you need to give them time before discussing your innermost fears and your heart’s desire with them.
- Whatever it is that you discuss, it must remain in the strictest confidence between the two (or three) of you, or else you will have lost their trust and friendship even before you have made any headway.
- Hang out together instead of just spending time together, go for a movie and later discuss it over ice creams, or play a board game together, just like you would with a friend.
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Do’s
- Be patient. Give them time to get used to the idea of having a son/ daughter who is a friend.
- Ask them for their advice about certain decisions that you need to make. Let them know that their opinion is important to you and that you need their guidance in growing up.
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Don’ts
- Don’t act bored while listening to your parents, look them in the eye and respond to their talk intelligently.